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HOWTO: Install your own python modules

While we provide a number of Python modules, you may need a module we do not provide. If it is a commonly used module, or one that is particularly difficult to compile, you can contact OSC Help for assistance, but we have provided an example below showing how to build and install your own Python modules, and make them available inside of Python. Note, these instructions use "bash" shell syntax; this is our default shell, but if you are using something else (csh, tcsh, etc), some of the syntax may be different.

Gather your materials

First, you need to collect up what you need in order to do the installation. To keep things tidy, we will do all of our work in $HOME/local/src. You should make this directory now.

mkdir -p $HOME/local/src

Now, we will need to download the source code for the module we want to install. In our example, we will use "NumExpr", a module we already provide in the system version of Python. You can either download the file to your desktop, and then upload it to OSC, or directly download it using the wget utility (if you know the URL for the file).

Now, extract the downloaded file. In this case, since it's a "tar.gz" format, we can use tar to decompress and extract the contents.

tar xvfz numexpr-2.0.1.tar.gz

You can delete the downloaded archive now, if you wish, or leave it around should you want to start the installation from scratch.

Build it!

Environment

To build the module, we will want to first create a temporary environment variable to aid in installation. We'll call it "INSTALL_DIR".

export INSTALL_DIR=${HOME}/local/numexpr/2.0.1

I am following, roughly, the convention we use at the system level. This allows us to easily install new versions of software without risking breaking anything that uses older versions. We have specified a folder for the program (numexpr), and for the version (2.0.1). Now, to be consistent with python installations, we're going to create a second temporary environment variable, which will contain the actual installation location.

export TREE=${INSTALL_DIR}/lib/python2.7/site-packages

Now, make the directory tree.

mkdir -p $TREE

Compile

To compile the module, we should switch to the GNU compilers. The system installation of Python was compiled with the GNU compilers, and this will help avoid any unnecessary complications. We will also load the Python module, if it hasn't already been loaded.

module swap intel gnu
module load python

Now, build it. This step may vary a bit, depending on the module you are compiling. You can execute python setup.py --help to see what options are available. Since we are overriding the install path to one that we can write to, and that fits our management plan, we need to use the --prefix option.

python setup.py install --prefix=$INSTALL_DIR

Make it usable

At this point, the module is compiled and installed in ~/local/numexpr/2.0.1/lib/python2.7/site-packages. Occasionally, some files will be installed in ~/local/numexpr/2.0.1/bin as well. To ensure Python can locate these files, we need to modify our environment.

Manual

The most immediate way - but the one that must be repeated every time you wish to use the module - is to manually modify your environment. If files are installed in the "bin" directory, you'll need to add it to your path. As before, these examples are for bash, and may have to be modified for other shells. Also, you will have to modify the directories to match your install location.

Hardcode it

We don't really recommend this option, as it is less flexible, and can cause conflicts with system software. But, if you want, you can modify your .bashrc (or similar file, depending on your shell) to set these environment variables automatically. Be extra careful; making a mistake in .bashrc (or similar) can destroy your login environment in a way that will require a system administrator to fix. To do this, you can copy the lines above modifying $PATH and $PYTHONPATH into .bashrc. Remember - test them interactively first! If you destroy your shell interactively, the fix is as simple as logging out and then logging back in. If you break your login environment, you'll have to get our help to fix it.

Make a module (recommended!)

This is the most complicated option, but it is also the most flexible, as you can have multiple versions of this particular software installed, and specify at run-time which one to use. This is incredibly useful if a major feature changes that would break old code, for example. You can see our tutorial on writing modules here, but the important variables to modify are, again, $PATH and $PYTHONPATH. You should specify the complete path to your home directory here, and not rely on any shortcuts like ~ or $HOME. Below is a modulefile written in Lua:

If you are following the tutorial on writing modules, you will want to place this file in $HOME/local/share/modulefiles/numexpr/2.0.1.lua:

-- This is a Lua modulefile, this file 2.0.1.lua can be located anywhere
-- But if you are following a local modulefile location convention, we place them in
-- $HOME/local/share/modulefiles/
-- For numexpr we place it in $HOME/local/share/modulefiles/numexpr/2.0.1.lua
-- This finds your home directory
local homedir = os.getenv("HOME")
prepend_path("PYTHONPATH",
pathJoin(homedir, "/local/numexpr/2.0.1/lib/python2.7/site-packages"))
prepend_path(homedir, "local/numexpr/2.0.1/bin"))

Once your module is created (again, see the guide), you can use your python module simply by loaded the software module you created.